


Ring a bell for the Righteous Man

by 60r3d0m



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Bottom Dean Winchester, Claiming, Dubious Consent, Enemies to Lovers, First Kiss, First Time, Happy Ending, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marriage, Sharing a Bed, Soul Bond, Top Castiel (Supernatural), Touch-Starved, have mercy, this story was written by a very tired person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-18 18:24:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19340068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/60r3d0m/pseuds/60r3d0m
Summary: An hour passes and the prince doesn't bed him.Dean thinks that maybe the prince doesn't have any intention of doing it at all, and if that's the case, it'll be Dean who'll face the consequences.So, thumbing a finger down the length of Cas' wings, Dean taunts, "I thought you promised Lord Alastair that I wouldn't be able to walk, your highness."Dean pauses."Are you doubting yourself, my lord?"Four years ago, when at last the kingdoms of Heaven and Hell ended their war, Dean sold himself to a demon, all to pay for the treatment that would save his dying brother's life. Now, after what feels like an eternity, Dean's one of the most sought-after courtesans in Lord Alastair's court. When the demonic noble captures an angel, the son of God himself, Lord Alastair's latest ploy threatens to obliterate the already precarious peace of the entire realm. In Heaven, where virginity is sacred, Alastair offers Castiel an impossible choice: bed Dean Winchester and fall from grace or risk starting another thousand-year-long war.





	Ring a bell for the Righteous Man

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry for this year's Dean/Cas Reverse Bang challenge! I had the honour of writing a story for the lovely and talented Aceriee whose art, embedded in this fic. as well as available on her [Tumblr](https://missaceriee.tumblr.com/) and [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aceriee/pseuds/Aceriee), will blow you away! I don't think any words could truly do justice to the beautiful work that she's created, but I do hope you enjoy this story! :P Aceriee's prompt for the story was the word "courtesan."
> 
> Note: Dean is a courtesan who sleeps with others at the request of Alastair in this story. Dean has willfully sold himself into a work contract for life. For this reason, I've chosen to tag this work with _dubious consent_. There are only references to sex work and nothing explicit, but if you'd like clarification about the warning, feel free to DM on Tumblr <3

Lord Alastair hasn’t bedded Dean in six months.

So when Crowley tells him to get dressed, for a moment, Dean doesn't know what to do.

It’s been weeks and weeks of being confined to his bedchamber _,_ weeks and weeks that the lord hasn’t wanted Dean seen or heard by the others in the court, hasn’t wanted Dean to lie with a stranger, to pry secrets from the mouth of some drunk noble who’s all too busy trying to clumsily impale Dean on his cock. It’s a _relief_ , being free from Alastair’s ministrations, but six months of relief means that he’s been six months useless to Alastair, and in the four years since he signed his life away to save Sammy’s, maybe the lord’s finally grown tired of him—maybe the rumours are true.

Dean’s being _sold_ , which means for the third time in his life, his fate’s up in the air.

 

 

 

 

Dean's _not_ being sold.

Crowley’s eyes glow when Dean asks, lips curving into a crooked smile as he leads Dean to court. _Oh, squirrel,_ the demon says and he can barely contain his chuckle _. You won't believe what Lord Alastair has planned for you._

They traverse the halls of the castle at a leisurely pace, as if Crowley's deaf to the thunderous sounds that are bellowing from the main hall. Somewhere from within, a creature cries out in pain, and maybe because it's been so long, Dean forgot the chaos that is life at Lord Alastair's court. Today, though, there's something off, something about the ruckus that seems particularly eerie, and everywhere in the corridors, there are more soldiers than Dean can count. 

Soon enough, Dean knows why—Dean’s breath catches in his throat as soon as he sees _him_.

He's only just made it to the top, Crowley whisking him up a stairwell instead of the main hall when Dean gets his first glimpse, but then Dean's already grabbing the railing, latching onto it with white-knuckled hands as he tries to steady himself. At least from up here, hidden in the shadows of the viewing gallery, Dean’s safe from wandering eyes, and Crowley, whose firm hold on his arm is relentless as ever, won't mention it to the lord unless he can use Dean’s reaction to his advantage.

_What are you hiding, squirrel?_ Crowley’s glittering eyes seem to say, but Dean—god, Dean can't hide a damn thing.

There’s an _angel_ in Alastair’s court, and out of all the angels in Heaven, it’s _Castiel_.

The angel howls. The angel’s furious, clawing and tearing at the sigilled iron chains that bind him, holding him prisoner before Alastair’s unlawful throne. It’s gotta be painful, the way Alastair’s got him trussed up, and as if in evidence, the stone tiles are already littered with feathers, each one wrenched out amidst the struggle.

"Is this how you treat the son of a king?" the angel snarls and when Castiel beats his wings again, this time the whole room shudders.

The candles extinguish.

But before they do, in the seconds before the angel’s wings make contact with the crumbling tiles, Castiel rears his head and his blue eyes settle on Dean.

He doesn't know Dean. They've never met. 

But Dean wants to kill him.

 

 

 

 

The first time that Dean's fate had been up in the air, it had been long ago, during the war, when Heaven and Hell had been locked in everlasting battle. 

Dean had been four, and the war a millennium old with no end in sight. That was when mother had died, when a rogue demon had burst into their home and tried to steal Samuel, another soul for the demons to devour for yet another battle, another human plucked from the valley between the two kingdoms where lesser beings like them lived. The Winchesters hadn't known then that they'd been graced with Hell's future ruler himself, the Yellow-Eyed King, or the fact that he'd made Sammy sick, given him an ailment that would slowly turn him into yet another demonic soldier. But it was that moment that Dean's life had changed, his mother murdered and his father driven mad by a quest for revenge that would eventually lead to Dean crawling up to Hell's gates twenty-five years later, begging to be bought, the only kingdom where flesh could be exchanged for gold, just enough to cover the sum for Samuel's cure.

That had been four years ago, and that had been the day that Heaven had finally ended its feud and declared peace with Hell.

So maybe because Lord Alastair knows how fragile the situation is, he smiles at Castiel. 

“Tell me, prince. How did you get past Hell’s gates? It’s no easy feat traversing our borders, especially without the king's permission. You have business here?”

The angel huffs, a clear refusal to answer, wings flexing slowly, as if he's threatening to blow out all the candles that the lord's just ordered to be re-lit. But for a moment, Castiel's gaze wanders upwards again, roaming the shadows, as if he can see Dean in the dark.   

Dean swallows. He drops his hands away from the railing.

Maybe Dean's imagining it, but he thinks the hardness of the angel's jaw softens before he turns back to face Alastair, whose presence has the entire court tense with the anticipation of his next move.

"It would be a shame, prince, if your little jaunt into our realm was misinterpreted as an act of war, don't you think?" the lord says, and Dean knows immediately what's going to happen next.

 

 

 

 

Dean doesn't know what's going to happen next. The truth is that Lord Alastair's mind is a trap of its own making, and even when Dean thinks he knows what deviousness the lord's conjured up next, the reality is usually far more hideous.

Over the years, Lord Alastair's taught Dean many things. He's taught Dean how useful his mouth and hands can be for another man's pleasure. He's taught Dean what pain means and a hundred methods to overcome it. Dean knows how to pull state secrets off the tongues of even the most stiff upper-lipped nobles, knows whether he ought to submit or dominate, whether he ought to taunt or cry and resist to get them hard, whatever it takes to get them to sing while they fuck him. 

But today, maybe even the lord's gotten too ambitious.

"I wouldn't want to tempt war, Prince Castiel," Alastair sings, "but you trespassing into our lands...the Yellow-Eyed King will not be pleased. I imagine your father, God, would agree. I shall reward you for your bold entry as I would any formidable knight such as yourself, and you will accept my reward and part these lands unharmed, I vow to you. I will tell the king that it was a challenge hosted by me, and you, the victor. My prize will be a sign, a hand of friendship. Therefore, I will lend you my concubine. You shall bed him, use him to your pleasure. He will be as if he is yours, and then, you will return to Heaven, your sacrifice a sign of the good faith between our nations."

The stunned silence that follows Alastair's declaration is one that Dean has never heard in the lord's court before.

_Didn't I tell you,_ Crowley whispers.  _Unimaginable, squirrel, what he had planned for you._

 

 

 

 

It’s not like humans have a real nation of their own, all scattered, some at the border of Heaven, others at the border of Hell. Dean's family hails from the first, and even if Dean’s not an angel, the angel’s customs have for a long time been Dean's own.

Virginity in Heaven is sacred. 

Angels don’t sleep with anyone but their mates.

And they definitely don’t do it until they’re _married_.

It’s why God had expelled his first son from Heaven. It's why Gabriel had disappeared of his own accord, when word had broken that he had been bedded by a goddess from the east, and it's why life with Alastair had been so hard for Dean at first. He’d been _ruined_. No one would want him after the things Dean had done—had been taught to do—even if he managed to get released from his contract of a lifetime of servitude.

_Oh, my sweet little grasshopper,_ the lord had crooned late one night, one finger trailing down Dean's cheek as if to mimic a tear.  _When you have slept with a thousand demons and stolen a thousand secrets for me, I will set you free, because even then, you will be mine._

So asking the unmarried prince to lie with Dean? A human? A... _whore_? 

There's no quicker way to destroy all of Castiel's future in one blow.   

 

 

 

 

An hour later, it's confirmed.

For fifty-eight minutes, the castle shakes with the angel's fury. Dean doesn't think there's a goddamn chance in hell that the prince will yield, that maybe war is something that both nations want, anyway, so maybe that's Lord Alastair's ploy, but then the lord summons Dean, and when Dean finally appears before the court, Castiel stills.

"This is him?" the angel says and he doesn't take his eyes off Dean, his regard so intense that Dean has the urge to look away.

"His beauty appeals to you, doesn't it?"

At that remark, the angel in shackles growls.

"I may have to sleep with your whore, Alastair, but I assure you that when I’m done with him, he will never be able to walk again and you will regret what you have done."

 

 

 

 

The waiting's always the worst part of it.

A full day passes where the prince is settled into the castle, this time as a guest rather than a prisoner. Dean has the entire night to lie in his own bed and think about how the next twenty-four hours will play out. It's not like angels aren't powerful. Castiel can make his threat come true. But at the very least, Dean knows that their biology is compatible this time. When he had first slept with Alastair, he hadn't known what to expect. He'd heard of nephilim, children born in the ether, the result of angels mating with humans, but aside from possession, demons had not really had any relevant function in Dean's mind. 

Now Dean knows that both angels and demons are alike.

They destroy things.

People.

Families.

 

 

 

 

Alastair comes to him right before sunrise. 

He caresses Dean's cheek, smiles as if his heart has grown fonder in the last six months that he's been absent, and presses his mouth to Dean's ear, whispering, whispering, whispering.

_You must bed him, little grasshopper. Have the little bird cast out of Heaven by his father. He will resist you, he will try to close his eyes to your seduction, but you must let him fuck you. And then, a year later, when the prince has grown bitter, we'll lure him back to Hell, introduce him to his brother, Lucifer, use his grace to power our demonic army and take Heaven for our own kingdom._

_The Yellow-Eyed King will adore you. We will be so well rewarded._

_For your sake, I hope you will not disappoint me._

 

 

 

 

When the first ray of sunlight pierces the window of Dean's bedchamber, Crowley comes for him.

It's a short walk to the prince's chamber. When Dean enters, the prince is in bed, already undressed, and when Dean's eyes fall on his nude form, there isn't even a flicker of self-consciousness on the prince's face.

"Come here," the angel says so Dean goes to him.

When Dean makes a move to pull off his robe, Castiel tells him to stop. It's Alastair's favourite, covered in devil's traps, something that had made the demon chuckle every time he'd been buried deep within Dean's body. Alastair had gotten a kick out of it, the red silk the only protection Dean had against hell spawn, protection that Dean had shed every time some monster had told him to get on his knees.

The childhood devil's trap tattoo on Dean's hip had been slashed in half by Alastair's knife the very first day that Dean had been bought.   

Today, when Dean seats himself on the bed, the angel trails his fingers over it.

"Why do you have this?" he says and his touch make Dean shiver.

 

 

                            

 

 

Dean tells him the truth. He tells him and tries to keep his voice level, tries to keep the anger from bubbling out, tries to tell him how he has a devil's trap on his hip because his family supported Heaven during the war even though Castiel's corrupt family never supported them.

There's a knife hidden in his boot and Dean wants nothing more than to embed it in Castiel's chest.

 

 

 

 

The angel manifests his wings. 

There's a splash of white-blue light and then inky black feathers are encasing Dean, wings taller and longer than he is and something about that is so terrifying that at that very moment, he pulls the knife from its sheath and stabs the angel. 

There's no satisfaction. There's only the sinking regret and fear that fills him because Alastair is going to skin him alive.

But then Castiel looks quizzically down at his chest and pulls the knife out as if it doesn't even hurt.

Turns out, there are some things about angels that Dean never learned. 

 

 

 

 

Dean thinks that he's probably going to die now but all the angel does is tell him to take off his boots in case he's hiding any more weapons.

Dean does it sheepishly.

Then the angel presses Dean into the mattress and maybe, Dean's going to die after all.

 

 

 

 

The second time that Dean's fate had been up in the air had been eleven hours before he had crawled to the gates of Hell and sold himself.

He'd been naive, maybe, or just really hopeful. 

But eleven hours before that, when his brother had been dying, Dean had went to Heaven, had begged at the palace gates for God or any of his angel kin to help him.

They hadn't, so instead, Dean had spent four years with Alastair whispering in his ear, telling him how Heaven hated him, and Dean, with little resistance, had started to believe him. 

So maybe that's why Castiel yanks his robe open now and hisses, "Traitor."

His other hand is still resting above the inked spot on Dean's hip.

 

 

 

 

"I'm not a traitor," Dean says. "My family was poor, my brother sick and the angels didn't give a damn."

At that, Castiel goes quiet. 

 

 

 

 

An hour passes and the prince doesn't bed him.

Dean thinks that maybe the prince doesn't have any intention of doing it at all, and if that's the case, it'll be Dean who'll face the consequences.

So, thumbing a finger down the length of Cas' wings, Dean taunts, "I thought you promised Lord Alastair that I wouldn't be able to walk, your highness."

Dean pauses. 

"Are you doubting yourself, my lord?"

 

 

 

 

It works.

Castiel pins him down with a fury that makes Dean shiver.

“You’re rather eager to get fucked.”

And Dean thinks, takes a moment to reflect, to run through the hundreds of moves that he could make, the hundreds of witty replies that Alastair's taught him, but all he can do is swallow.

“Tell me about yourself,” Castiel says and he positions himself at Dean's entrance. "Tell me, grasshopper, and I'll take you."

So Dean says, "My name's not grasshopper."

 

 

 

 

Dean heaves.

The prince’s clumsy fingers shouldn’t be this arousing, but maybe it’s the kisses that he keeps showering upon Dean’s body that do it.

“I thought you were gonna wreck me, Cas,” he gasps just as Cas rubs his hand lovingly over the scar on Dean’s hip.

“I lied.”

 

 

 

 

Even though Dean's done this a hundred times before, today feels like the first time.

Maybe because it's the prince's first time.

Cas' thrusts are uneven and sometimes too enthusiastic and Dean cries out more than once as he's split open. 

When he's on the edge of release, with a hand clenched on Dean's shoulder, the angel tells him to look at him.

Dean's so used to seeing the flick of Alastair's demonic black eyes that when he sees holy light emerging from the angel's, Dean closes his eyes instead.

_But look_ , Castiel commands.

 

 

 

 

When Dean thinks he can't look anymore, Cas clasps his jaw and kisses him.

Dean's never been kissed like this before.

Dean's spent years getting touched, but for the first time, he feels satisfaction.

And then Cas divulges his secret.

"I came to Hell to save you," Cas says. "Your brother prayed hard for this. Do you want to be saved?"

 

 

 

 

Dean says yes.

 

 

 

 

The first thing that Dean notices is light.

There's light everywhere, light flooding his body, inside and out, light at his toes and his fingertips.

And then…searing pain.

Dean howls. Dean tries to push at Cas, but Cas keeps him firmly enclosed in his arms. The pain isn’t where Dean expects. It isn’t between his legs, even though Cas is buried to the hilt inside Dean’s body. It isn’t in his eyes, where Dean expects to be blinded by holy light.

It’s in his _shoulders_.

When Dean’s about to cry out again, Cas clamps his hand over Dean’s mouth.

_Shush_ , he says. _They’ll hear you._

 

 

 

 

When all of it ebbs away, Dean realizes what's happened.

He's an  _angel_.

At his back, there are _wings_.

And the bond pulsing between Cas and him—they're  _married_.

 

 

 

 

The third time that Dean's fate's up in the air, he's on the run mated to an angel whom he barely knows.

There's war brewing on the horizon. There's evil and deception, but Dean's free and his brother's waiting for him on the other side of the gate.

When they make it through, maybe somewhere, a prophecy's fulfilled because, "Ring a bell for the Righteous Man," Cas tells the angels, "for he is saved."  

**Author's Note:**

> I was very pressed for time for this particular challenge due to real life stuff, so I'm really hoping to revise and expand this story greatly in the future! But for now, I hope that for my first AU story, it was at least somewhat coherent considering how sleep-deprived I was when I wrote it :P I know the ending's a bit iffy, but I can only hope that it made more sense for you guys than it did for me. 
> 
> Lastly, if you enjoyed this story, kudos and comments are always appreciated! <3 You can find me on Tumblr [here](http://60r3d0m.tumblr.com) and the wonderful Aceriee [here](https://missaceriee.tumblr.com/). Please shower her with kudos and praise [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19328794) and check out the other two art pieces that she did for this challenge, both equally gorgeous! :D


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